Chiara Lubich

Chiara Lubich is the Founder of the Focolare Movement. She was born in Trent, Italy on 22 January 1920. Her father and brother were political and opponents of fascism, her mother had a strong Catholic faith. In 1939 during a trip to the shrine of Loreto she felt her first call to her future vocation, when she heard God telling her she would be followed by many.

On her return from Loreto, a priest asked her about her vocation but Chiara was unable to describe what she felt, but knew it wouldn’t be a traditional ones: not the convent, not matrimony, not consecration to God in the world.

In 1943, when Chiara was 23, as she was on her way to fetch some milk, Chiara heard the call from God: “Give yourself totally to me.” Following a deep conversation with a priest she obtained permission. On 7 December 1943 she consecrated her life to God forever. On that day Chiara didn’t have the slightest intention of founding anything: she was simply ‘marrying God.’ And this was everything for her. Only later did this day come to be identified as the symbolic beginning of the Focolare Movement.

In the following months Chiara drew many young women to her, some of whom wanted to follow her path. But meanwhile the war was waging in Trent, bringing ruin, misery, and death. Chiara and her new companions were in the habit of meeting in the air-raid shelters during air attacks. Their desire was strong to be together and to discover new ways of being Christian, of putting the Gospel into practice. Chiara would later say. ‘The lesson that God was offering to us through the circumstances around us was quite clear: Everything is vanity of vanities, everything passes away. But, contemporaneously, God placed a question in my heart, which was for all of us. And He also provided the answer: ‘But could there be an ideal that doesn’t die, that no bomb can crumble and to which we can give ourselves?’ Yes: God. We decided to make God the ideal of our life.’

Chiara Lubich was a pioneer for her time. In the Church – a lay woman – she proposed themes and openings that were only later taken up by Vatican II. In a global society she pointed the way to universal brotherhood when no one was speaking of civilizations drawing closer to each other. She respected life and searched for the meaning of suffering. She traced out a way of religious and civil holiness that can be practiced by anyone and not reserved for only a chosen few.

In connection with the events at the little town of Loppiano from 10th-12th March, on the 9th anniversary of Chiara Lubich’s death and the 50th anniversary of the New Families Movement, we publish some extracts from a talk given in Lucerne (Switzerland) in 1999.

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